Crimes of Old London: The Scoured Silk by Marjorie Bowen Read online

  “You will show them to me?” asked

  this young man who had no dead wife in his

  Elisa Minden, and her lover gave graceful

  life. Something was roused in her meek youth

  consent. There was further amiable talk, and

  and passive innocence, and she wondered why

  then the whole party, guided by Mr. Orford

  she had so quietly accepted her father’s holding a candle, made a tour of the house and arrangement of a marriage with this elderly

  looked over the fine rooms.

  scholar and why Philip Hoare had let her do it.

  Mrs. Hoare took occasion to whisper

  Her thoughts were quite vague and amounted

  to the bride-to-be that there were many

  to no more than a confused sense that alterations needed before the place was ready something was wrong. But she lost her for a lady’s use and that it was time these were satisfaction in the tea-drinking and the put in hand—why, the wedding was only a pleasant company and the warm room with the

  fortnight off!

  drawn curtains and the bright fire.

  And Elisa Minden, who had not had a

  She rose up, saying they must be mother to advise her in these matters, returning, as there was a great store of suddenly felt that the house was dreary and mending she had promised to help her aunt

  old-fashioned and an impossible place to live

  with; but Mrs. Hoare would not help her out,

  in. The very rooms that had so pleased her

  but protested, laughing, that there was time

  good father—a set of apartments for a lady-—

  enough for that, and the good doctor, who was

  were to her the most hateful in the house, as

  in a fine humor and no mood to go out into the

  they, her lover told her, had been furnished

  bleak streets even as far as his own door,

  and prepared for Flora Orford, twenty years

  declared that now was the time they must be

  ago.

  shown over the house.

  She was telling herself that

  “Do you know, Humphrey,” he said,

  immediately after her marriage she must go

  “you have often promised us this, but never

  away and that the house must be altered

  have done it? In all the years that I have

  before she could return to it, when the party

  known you, I have never seen but this room

  came crowding to the threshold of the library

  and the dining-room below—and as to your

  or private cabinet, and Mr. Orford, holding the closet—or particular cabinet—”

  candle aloft, led them in.

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  This illumination was not sufficient,

  obvious fright were out of proportion to her

  and Orford went very quickly and lit the two

  discovery.

  candles on the mantelpiece.

  “Why. child.” said Mrs. Hoare, “it is a

  It was a pleasant apartment, lined from floor

  silk petticoat, as all can see.”

  to ceiling with books, old, valuable and richly

  “A gift for you, my dear,” said the

  bound books, save only in the space above the

  cheerful doctor.

  chimney-piece, which was occupied by a

  “A gift for me!” cried Elisa. “Why,

  portrait of a lady and the panel behind the

  this has been scoured and turned and mended

  desk. This was situated in a strange position,

  and patched a hundred times!” And she held

  in the furthest corner of the room, fronting the up the skirt, which had, indeed, become like

  wall, so that any one seated there would be

  tinder and seemed ready to drop to pieces.

  facing the door with the space of the room

  The scholar now spoke: “It belongs to

  between.

  Mrs. Boyd,” he said quietly. “I suppose she

  The desk was quite close to the wall,

  has been in here to clear up my litter and has

  so that there was only just space for the chair left some of her mending here.”

  at which the writer would sit, and to

  Now, there were things about this

  accommodate this there were no book-shelves

  speech which made a strange impression on

  behind it, but a smooth panel of wood, on

  every one: first, it was manifestly impossible

  which hung a small picture. This was a rough,

  that the good housekeeper would ever have

  dark painting and represented a man hanging

  owned such a garment as this that was a lady’s

  on a gallows on a wild heath. It was a subject

  dress, and such as would be worn for a ball;

  out of keeping with the luxurious room, with

  and secondly, Mr. Orford had only a short

  its air of ease and learning, and while Mr.

  while before declared that Mrs. Boyd only

  Orford was showing his first editions, his entered his room when he was in it, and then Elzevirs and Aldines, Elisa Minden was of a necessity, and for a few moments.

  staring at this ugly little picture.

  All had the same impression; this was

  As she looked she was conscious of

  some garment belonging to his dead wife and

  such a chill of horror and dismay as nearly

  as such cherished by him—all that is, but

  caused her to shriek aloud.

  Elisa, who had heard him call Flora Orford a

  The room seemed to her to be full of

  wicked woman.

  an atmosphere of terror and evil beyond

  Elisa put the silk down quickly—there

  expression.

  was a needle sticking into it and a spool of

  Never had such a thing happened to

  cotton lying on the chair beneath—and looked

  her before: her distaste at her visit to the tomb up at the portrait above the mantelpiece. “Is

  early in the afternoon had been as nothing to

  that Mrs. Orford?” she asked. He gave her a

  this.

  queer look. “Yes,” he said. In a strange silence She moved away, barely able to all glanced up at the picture. It showed a disguise an open panic. As she turned she half

  young woman in a white gown, holding a

  stumbled against a chair, caught at it, and

  crystal heart that hung round her neck; she had noticed, hanging over the back, a silk skirt of dark hair and a pretty face.

  peach-colored silk. Elisa, not being mistress of As Elisa looked at the pointed fingers

  herself, caught at this garment.

  holding the pretty toy, she thought of the

  “Why, sir,” cried she hysterically, tablet in St. Paul’s Church and Mr. Orford’s

  “what is this?”

  words: “She is no near to you that if she could All turned to look at her: her tone, her

  stretch out her hand she could touch you,” and

  Crimes of Old London: The Scoured Silk 7

  without any remark about the portrait or the

  closet, the discovery of the scoured silk.

  sitter, she advised her aunt that it was time to

  “But I must know something of his

  go home. The four of them left, and Mr.

  first wife, Philip,” she concluded. “I could

  Orford saw them out, standing framed in the

  never go on with it, if I did not. Something has warm light of the corridor and watching them

  happened to-day I hate that house—I almost

  disappear into the gray
darkness of the street.

  hate-him.”

  It was little more than an hour

  “Why did you do it, Lizzie?”

  afterward when Elisa Minden came creeping

  demanded the young soldier, sternly. “This

  down the stairway of her home and accosted

  was a nice home-coming for me—a man who

  her cousin, who was just leaving the house.

  might be your father—a solitary one who

  “Oh, Philip,” said she, clasping her

  frightens you.”

  hands, “if your errand be not a very important

  Miss Minden stared at her cousin. She

  one, I beg you to give me an hour of your

  did not know why she had done it. The whole

  time. I have been watching for you to go out,

  thing seemed suddenly impossible.

  that I might follow and speak to you

  “Please, you must come with me

  privately.”

  now,” she said.

  The young soldier looked at her keenly

  So overwrought was she that he had no

  as she stood in the light of the hall-lamp, and heart to refuse her, and they took their warm

  he saw that she was very agitated.

  cloaks from the hall and went out into the dark

  “Of course, Lizzie,” he answered streets.

  kindly, and led her into the little parlor off the It was snowing now and the ground

  hall where there was neither candies or fire,

  slippery under foot. Elisa clung to her cousin’s but leisure and quiet to talk.

  arm; she did not want to see Mr. Orford or his

  Elisa, being a housekeeper, found a

  house ever again, and by the time they reached

  lamp and lit it, and apologized for the cold.

  the doorstep she was in a tremble; but she rang But she would not return up-stairs, she said,

  the bell boldly. Mrs. Boyd herself came to the

  for Mrs. Hoare and the two girls and the

  door, and she began explaining that the master

  doctor were all quiet in the great parlor, and

  was shut up in his cabinet, but the soldier cut she had no mind to disturb them.

  her short.

  As she said this she looked anxiously

  “Miss Minden wishes to see you,” he

  at the pleasant face of her cousin as if she

  said, “and I will wait in the hall till she is

  appealed to his kindness. She made no ready.”

  explanation, neither did he ask it, as to why

  So Elisa followed the housekeeper

  she had selected him for her confidence down to her basement sitting-room. The instead of her father or aunt.

  manservant was out and the two maids were

  “You are in trouble,” said Captain quickly dismissed to the kitchen.

  Hoare, quietly.

  Mrs. Boyd, a placid soul near seventy

  “Yes,” replied she, in a frightened years, waited for the young lady to explain way. “I want you to come with me now to Mr.

  herself. Elisa Minden, flushed and paled by

  Orford’s house—I want to speak to his turns, feeling foolish and timid, put forth the housekeeper.”

  object of her coming.

  “Why, what is this, Lizzie?”

  She wanted to hear the story of Flora

  She had no very good explanation: Orford—there was no one else whom she there was only the visit to the church that

  could ask—and she thought that she had a

  afternoon, her impression of horror in the right to know.

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  “And I suppose you have, my dear,”

  “And the man?” asked Miss Minden,

  said Mrs. Boyd, gazing into the fire; “though

  after a little.

  it is not a pretty story for you to hear and I

  “The man she loved, my dear? Well,

  never thought I should be telling it to Mr.

  Mr. Orford had him arrested as a thief for

  Orford’s second wife!”

  breaking into his house. He was wild—that

  “Not his wife yet!” said Miss Minden.

  fellow—with not the best of characters. Well,

  “There, there, you had better ask the

  he would not say why he was in the house;

  master himself,” replied Mrs. Boyd placidly.

  and Mr. Orford, being a justice of the peace,

  “Not but that he would be fierce at your had the power, and he was just condemned as speaking of it, for I do not think a mention of a common thief. And there are few to this day

  it has passed his lips, and it’s twenty years

  know the truth of the tale, for he kept his

  ago, and best forgotten, my dear.”

  counsel to the last, and no one knew from him

  “Tell it me and then I will forget,”

  why he had been found in the squire’s house.”

  begged Miss Minden.

  “What was his end?” asked Miss

  Then Mrs. Boyd, who was a quiet,

  Minden in a still voice.

  harmless soul with no dislike to telling a tale

  “Well, he was hanged,” said Mrs.

  (though no gossip, as events had proved—she

  Boyd. “Being caught red-handed, what could

  had kept her tongue still on this matter for so he hope for?”

  long), told her the story of Humphrey Orford’s

  “Then that is a picture of him in the

  wife.

  cabinet!” cried Elisa, shivering, for all the

  It was told in very few words.

  great fire. She added, desperately: “Tell me,

  “She was the daughter of his did Flora Orford die in that cabinet?”

  gamekeeper, my dear, and he married her out

  “Oh, no, my dear, but in a great room

  of hand, just for her pretty face. But they were at the back of the house, that has been shut up not very happy together that I could ever see:

  ever since.”

  she was afraid of him, and that made her

  “But the cabinet is horrible,” said

  cringe, and he hated that, and she shamed him

  Elisa. “Perhaps it is her portrait and that

  with her ignorant ways. And then one day he

  picture.”

  found her with a lover, saving your presence,

  “I have hardly been in there,” admitted

  mistress, one of her own people—just a Mrs. Boyd. “but the master lives there—he common man. And he was just like a creature

  has always had his supper there, and he talks

  possessed; he shut up the house and sent away

  to that portrait, my dear. ‘Flora, Flora!’ he

  all the servants but me, and brought his lady

  says, ‘how are you feeling tonight?’ and then

  up to town, to this house here. And what

  he imitates her voice answering.

  passed between her and him no one will know,

  Elisa Minden clapped her hand to her

  but she ever looked like one dying of terror.

  heart.

  And then the doctor began to come-Dr.

  “Do not tell me these things or I shall

  Thursby, it was, that is dead now—and then

  think that you are hateful, too, to have stayed she died, and no one was able to see her even

  in this dreadful house and endured them!”

  when she was in her coffin, nor to send a

  Mrs. Boyd was surprised. “Now, my

  flower. ’Tis likely she died of grief, poor fond dear, do not be put out,” she protested. “They

  wretch. But of course she was a wicked were wicked people, both of the
m, and got woman, and there was nothing to do but pity

  their deserts, and it is an old story best

  the master.”

  forgotten; and as for the master, he has been

  And this was the story of Flora Orford.

  just a good creature ever since we have been

  Crimes of Old London: The Scoured Silk 9

  here, and he will not go talking to any picture found they had been missed and there had to

  when he has a sweet young wife to keep him

  be explanations. Elisa said there was

  company.”

  something that she had wished to say to Mrs.

  But Elisa Minden had risen and had

  Boyd, and Philip told of Mr. Orford’s

  her fingers on the handle of the door.

  rudeness and the quarrel that had followed.

  “One thing more,” said she

  The two elder people were disturbed

  breathlessly; “that scoured silk—of a peach

  and considered Elisa’s behavior strange, but

  color—”

  her manifest agitation caused them to forbear

  “Why, has he got that still? Mrs. pressing her for an explanation. It was no use Orford wore it the night he found her with her

  addressing themselves to Philip, for he went

  sweetheart. I mind I was with her when she

  out to his delayed meeting with some

  bought it—fine silk at forty shillings the yard.

  companions, at a coffeehouse.

  If I was you, my dear, I should burn that when

  That night Elisa Minden went to bed

  I was mistress here.”

  feeling more emotion than she had ever done

  But Miss Minden had run up-stairs to

  in her life—fear and disgust of the man whom

  the cold hall.

  hitherto she had placidly regarded as her